The lesson of Borisville could also apply in real life, says Brian League, a Los Angeles city planner and SimCity player: In the case of South-Central Los Angeles, for example, “a lot of pretty terrible development went up in the 1980s. “Then the plane crash came along.” When the smoke cleared, Borowsky put in a park, rerouted trains and reorganized his downtown. “The city center needed to be torn down, but politically it couldn’t be done,” says the poll-conscious mayor. The next disaster - a jetliner crash that leveled a swath of downtown - proved to have a silver lining. The only way to bring the blaze under control was to bulldoze around it. “I put up a new station, but it just burned down,” he says. The mayor discovered that SimCity fire departments were virtually useless in the face of flames. A big quake wiped out 30,000 residents and fires swept through town. I put in nuclear power plants everywhere.” “All I wanted was for my city to grow, grow, grow. “I became a total Republican playing this game,” Borowsky says.

Soon, miniature cars cruised the town’s roads, smokestacks belched soot into the sky and tiny football games could be seen and heard in the city’s gleaming new stadium. He set tax rates and opened police and fire stations. On the computer screen, Borisville began as a 100-square-mile chunk of empty land, to which Borowsky added rail lines, highways, homes and factories. “But I’ve been waiting for Godzilla to strike,” he says, referring to one of many disasters that randomly befall SimCities. After guiding his town through a massive earthquake, fires and a disastrous plane crash, Borowsky now enjoys the kind of success that causes real politicians to salivate: sky-high poll ratings, a bustling economy and 200 consecutive years as mayor. Meet Larry Borowsky, 29, a Denver resident and - in his spare time - mayor of Borisville. Mayors who fail are driven from town by an angry mob - led by their own mothers. Rio de Janeiro’s, for example, is flooding caused by global warming.

The built-in towns have a specific problem to solve in a set amount of time. With tabula rasa towns, the game theoretically can last forever.

And one city planner says it might even hold a lesson for post-riot Los Angeles.įor most players, however, the goal is much simpler: Create a city from scratch or try to solve the problems of a built-in metropolis. The game is also turning up in school and university classrooms.

Simcity 5 disasters